A Ghostly Change
by The Blue Spectre
Summary: [Danny Phantom] Danny's beginning to wonder if he's cut out of ghost fighting, when he makes a discovery that rocks his world.
1. Danny

Danny sighed as he punched the "living" daylights out of yet another ghost. This one was especially stupid, he thought to himself. I mean, the ghost's name was "The Spooky Thing." Could there be something any less original? No, I didn't think so, he decided.  
  
Danny looked over at where his friend Tucker was holding the Fenton Thermos. "Ready?" he sighed.  
  
"Yup!" Tucker shouted. "We'll have this one put away in a snap!"  
  
Tucker, Danny realized, never seemed to lose enthusiasm, unlike him. When he'd first gotten these powers, they had been horribly cool, if a little unnerving. He had thought that it would be impossible to grow tired of saving the world. But he had been wrong. Saving people just wasn't all it seemed cracked up to be. Having to be the hero was hard work, and it was getting pretty monotonous. The same ghosts would come out of the portal, again and again, hoping to best him, but never getting any closer to doing so.  
  
"I am the Box Ghost!" came a voice from behind. Danny turned. Speak of the devil, he thought.  
  
"Won't you just go away?" he yelled at the ghost. "You're driving me insane! WHY do you keep coming back?!?!?"  
  
"Well. I dunno." The Box Ghost looked a bit flustered. "It's what ghosts do, you know, fighting good guys and scaring people and all that. It's what we've got all these coooool powers for!" The box ghost grinned, but his expression turned to dismay as he was thrown into the portal.  
  
"Thanks Tucker," said Danny as he landed on the floor, reverting back to his human form. "That guy is driving me nuts. I wish he'd go away and STAY away."  
  
"Eh, don't let him get to you. I'm guessing that guy had some strange issues in life. Don't listen to him. Just forget it."  
  
But Danny couldn't forget. Something about how the Box Ghost had been talking about evil made him think. "it's what ghosts do..." 


	2. A Change

At school the next day, Danny was feeling especially down. Dash had just spent the last five minutes stuffing cafeteria food into his face, but still managing to make it look like Danny's fault in front of the teachers. Now Danny had detention for a week, and had been charged with mopping the floor of Lancer's classroom.  
  
The worst part was, no matter how much Danny wanted to get Dash back for all he'd done, he couldn't. He remembered what happened the last time he'd used his powers for ghostly revenge. "Guys," said Danny. "This really can't get much worse, can it?'  
  
"Well," said Sam. "Think of it this way. Things could be worse. We could be using REAL frogs in science class, instead of these revolutionary mechanical ones."  
  
"Yeah!" said Tucker. "We could be stuck with detention too. Now THAT would be bad." Tucker and Sam laughed, rolling around on the cafeteria table. "Have fun mopping," giggled Tucker.  
  
Suddenly Danny felt anger towards his friends deeper than any he'd ever experienced. This was strange for him, as he was normally as placid as a rock. But before he knew what he was doing, he'd reverted to ghost form, and with a power he had no control over, caused their trays to fly smack into their heads.  
  
Danny was shaken, as he watched mashed goo drip slowly off his friends' faces. He didn't know what happened. How had he done that? And more importantly, why had it felt so good? 


	3. The flute

When Danny got home that day, things seemed to be back to normal, which, for him, wasn't really that normal at all. His dad was down in the lab, working on his newest ghost-catching invention, the "Fenton Flute," which his dad was convinced would create a melody that ghosts had no choice but to follow. Danny wasn't sure it would work, but to be on the safe side, he'd been trying to avoid his dad.  
  
Just then, Jack Fenton came waltzing up the stairs. "Speak of the devil," muttered Danny. With him, his dad carried the flute. "Listen to this!" shouted his father. An unearthly melody filled the room, one like Danny had never heard before. It was so beautiful...like everything he'd ever loved put into one song. He just had to see where it would take him. He felt his feet coming off of the floor, and deep-down, realized that this was a bad thing. He couldn't let them see he was a ghost. As he struggled to keep control of his body, he bumped smack into Jazz.  
  
"Stop!" she yelled, breaking the spell. "That was the worst squeaking I've ever heard. It sounded like a dying animal! That isn't music. I'm sure even a....ghost...could realize that." She left the room.  
  
"Phew," thought Danny. "That was way too close for comfort." And he fled up to his room. He thought about what had happened at school. Why had he blown up like that? His friends were his friends, they joked all the time! And how had he moved those trays? He'd never been able to do that before...  
  
So Danny spent the rest of the night trying to move things with his mind alone. Nothing worked, not changing to ghost mode, not staying human, nothing. And with that, Danny fell to sleep, exausted. 


	4. A dream

That night, Danny's dream was a confusing one. Over and over again, he heard the box ghost shouting, "It's what ghosts do.... It's what ghosts do.... It's what ghosts do!!!!" Danny was spinning in a whirl of color, seeing the faces of all of the ghosts he'd ever beaten, when suddenly...  
  
He was walking down the road when he saw a ghost. A big, scary one, unlike anything he'd faced before. Of one, it had no body, and was made entirely of a pure white mist, and had a bright red scarf about its neck. There was something delicate about it, but at the same time, Danny could tell it was more evil than anything he'd ever faced. He started chasing after it, but it blew him away like a dry leaf. It was too powerful.  
  
But it was only when he crashed into the ground that Danny realized something was amiss. "Ow...that hurt." He muttered. "Wait. That...hurt? I'm not dreaming? Oh no." Danny knew he had to beat thins ghost, and soon, so he could find his way home. He flew towards the ghost, faster than he'd ever flown before, thinking to slam it to the ground. Instead, the moment Danny touched it, it enveloped him, and when he breathed in, it forced itself into Danny lungs, taking control of him, causing him to twitch and scream uncontrollably.  
  
Danny felt like he was on fire. Pain worse than anything he'd ever experienced was forcing its way though his body. He screamed, and fought to gain control. He reached out, and grabbed the scarf around the ghost's neck, and then, as it totally gained control of him, he screamed again, louder than any human could. It was ghostly, really, a horrible moaning of pain and terror no human could ever have felt. Then everything went black.  
  
"Daniel Fenton, get out of bed this instant. You are going to be late for school, and I'm not calling again!" Maddie Fenton yelled up the stairs.  
  
"Wha-huh?" Danny awoke with a start. He suddenly remembered what had happened. "Oh, it was just a dream, only a dream. Whew." As he jumped out of bed, he didn't notice the scrap of red cloth that hovered, if only for a moment, before falling to his bedroom floor. 


End file.
